As abeppu points out, this is their death estimate: 40.4 million [32.9 million–51.3 million] is their estimate on deaths.
Further, covid deaths are severely undercounted. Our world in data reports 26 million excess deaths to date, about 5 million in the past year. That's with three years of data, vs. three decades for HIV.
There's surely some HIV undercount too, but it's a reasonable bet that covid will exceed HIV in terms of deaths long run.
No, they are severely overcounted. We were literally counting people who died of motorcycle accidents as COVID deaths if they tested positive for COVID in the emergency room. The PCR tests were dialed up to 40 cycles, which caused a huge amount of "false positives" as well.
The health authorities admitted that over 90% of the COVID deaths had pre-existing conditions and the actual cause of death wasn't really COVID. The IFR of COVID is less than a bad flu season.
Further, covid deaths are severely undercounted. Our world in data reports 26 million excess deaths to date, about 5 million in the past year. That's with three years of data, vs. three decades for HIV.
There's surely some HIV undercount too, but it's a reasonable bet that covid will exceed HIV in terms of deaths long run.